video noise

[Michael Palmer]

When shooting day time exterior I set the gain to -3db and when needed for interior shooting in low light I set the gain to as high as 6db. If you are providing light you shouldn’t need any extra gain beyond 3db.

Good Luck
Michael Palmer

[Eldrin Flores]

Thanks for the reply. 🙂 I have the same settings of -3db when shooting. But still I got those noise specially on the black part of a shot. I also pull down the gamma and black gamma to -10. Is that ok?

[Stephen May]

The EX11 and EX3 are compressed files to SxS media cards; 4:2:0 and the compression is going to give you some trouble in the darker areas, but not as much as a camera with even smaller sensors, say a 1/3 inch CCD or CMOS – but everything makes a difference – the lens, the compression scheme, sampling, everything.

You’re doing good if you’re adjusting your picture profile in the gamma and black gamma, so you may be getting close to the best shot you can get, but make sure you’re using a proper monitoring system when viewing your clips. I have a coup[le of 24 inch Samsung SyncMaster 244T LCD panels that basically do a horrible job of showing me my true saturation and darks. The resolution is great and I have a nice amount of realty (space) to spread my work across – but I quickly had to learn not to pout over the awful looking displays. I share my media with the marketing team, and they have Apple displays, and my stuff looks much nicer on those!

There are also some options with shutter settings, but you need to be careful to not go to far and blur. The shutter is well known for crisp images in action, and when used like that it can also cut your light down considerably, but the shutter/angle can also be used to get the reverse effect getting you more exposure. The only other thing I’d recommend is to go FULL AUTO just to see if the camera ‘beats’ your settings in a low light situation.

So make sure you’re actually monitoring correctly, and always look at what the camera AUTO setting brings back when you feel like you should be getting a better shot. It took a small while before I had better settings than AUTO in low light. -Stephen

Stephen May
Keystone Media Productions
Freelance Videographer

[Stephen May]

btw – the EX11 isn’t actually out yet – just kidding – that was a type-O, I meant to type “EX1”. whoops.

Stephen May
Keystone Media Productions
Freelance Videographer

[Eldrin Flores]

Thank you so much for that. 🙂 I hope I could learn more from you guys! 🙂

[Don Greening]

[stephen may] “btw – the EX11 isn’t actually out yet – just kidding – that was a type-O”

Since everybody keeps telling me that Sony doesn’t like even numbers I’m assuming the next one will be the EX5. This is the one I’m waiting for which will look suspiciously like an HPX300 on steroids. Which is why my real name is actually Gone Dreaming.

– Don